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Going Postal
Going Postal is Terry Pratchett's 33rd Discworld novel, released in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2004. Unusually for a Discworld novel (other than the children's books and the Science of Discworld''s) ''Going Postal is divided into chapters. These chapters begin with a synopsis of philosophical themes, in a similar manner to some Victorian novels and, notably, to Jules Verne stories. The book has been interpreted as a satirical attack on right-wing libertarianism in general and a parody of the writings of Ayn Rand in particular. The name comes from the expression 'going postal'. The book was on the shortlist for the Nebula Award for Best Novel. It would also have been shortlisted for the Hugo Award for Best Novel, except that Pratchett withdrew it, as he felt stress over the award would mar his enjoyment of the Worldconhttp://news.ansible.co.uk/a218.htmlhttp://www.nicholaswhyte.info/sf/Hugo2005.htm. This was the first time Pratchett had been shortlisted for either award. Plot Moist von Lipwig is a skilful con artist. Nevertheless, he is confined to a cell in Ankh-Morpork and scheduled to be hanged, having stolen a total of AM$150,000. He is saved when his own death is faked and Lord Vetinari offers him a choice: he can walk out of the door (and fall to his death), or he can become Postmaster of the city’s run down Post Office. Lipwig chooses the latter, hoping that a chance to escape will present itself. Lipwig’s first and last escape attempt is thwarted by a golem named Mr Pump, previously called Pump 19 because he had spent the previous 250 years at the bottom of a well pumping water, who delivers Lipwig back to the office of the Patrician. With great reluctance, Lipwig takes up his duties, only to find things are even worse than he had presumed. The Post Office has not functioned for decades, and the building is literally full of undelivered mail. Two eccentric employees remain: the aged Junior Postman Tolliver Groat, and Stanley Howler, a pin-obsessed boy who was raised by peas. They are more concerned about following the Post Office Regulations than seeing the postal system restored. There's also a Post Office cat, Mr. Tiddles, but it is even more set in its ways than its owners. Lipwig learns that within the last couple of months, while he was waiting to die in his prison cell, a whole string of newly-appointed Postmasters have met their own deaths in the Post Office building. Lipwig eventually discovers that most of the men were killed by failure to safely interact with a "ghost reality" which overlays the physical structure in the Post Office. A wizard at Unseen University explains to him that this phenomenon is caused by the fact that words have power, and masses of them are currently crammed into every available inch of space in the Post Office. Passing a cruel and dangerous test conducted by the few surviving members of a secret order of postmen, Lipwig "officially" becomes Postmaster, and also learns that the Post Office was once a very efficient operation. Its downfall was when the trans-dimensional letter-sorting machine, created by the infamous inventor Bloody Stupid Johnson, became so highly tuned (owing to Johnson's substitution of 3 for pi in its design) that it was sorting letters before they were written, along with letters which might have been written, but weren't. Lipwig introduces postage stamps to Ankh-Morpork, hires golems to deliver the mail, and finds himself competing against the Grand Trunk Clacks line. He meets and falls in love with the tough, chain-smoking golem-rights activist, Adora Belle Dearheart, and the two begin a relationship by the end of the book. Dearheart is the daughter of the Clacks founder John Dearheart, though the company was taken away from her by tricky financial manoeuvring. Because of this, she still has useful contacts amongst the clacks operators. The unscrupulous Clacks chairman, Reacher Gilt, sets a banshee assassin (Mr Gryle) on the Postmaster, but only manages to burn down much of the Post Office building. The banshee dies when he gets flipped onto the space-warping sorting machine. Lipwig makes an outrageous wager than he can deliver a message to Genua faster than the Grand Trunk can. "The Smoking Gnu", a group of clacks-crackers, sets up a plan to send a killer poke into the clacks system that will destroy the machinery, halting the message that Lipwig will race against. Lipwig talks the Gnu out of it, and opts for a more psychological attack on the Grand Trunk, leaving the semaphore towers standing. This plan succeeds, and Gilt ends up walking through a very specific door - the very option that Lipwig avoided. Popular References: The cover design was inspired by the original Star Wars poster and there are many Star Wars references throughout the book. The title comes from a term that arose in the 1980s because of several mentally stressed U.S. Postal Service employees who went on a shooting rampage at post offices, killing employees and bystanders. This resulted in the U.S. Postal Service (and many other organizations) re-evaluating employee work conditions and decreasing stress in the work place. The term became an American slang term for when an employee or ex-employee goes on a murder rampage at his workplace, though it is more used to predict that someone is getting upset with job conditions enough to go postal. In the book this emotional condition is perfectly represented by Stanley. Going Postal '' is the first of the Discworld books to be separated into actual chapters. At the beginning of each chapter is a short summary of what the chapter is about. This is a similar approach to Victorian morality tales, giving the reader a taste of what is to come. The line, "They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully” is a paraphrase of a quote by Samuel Johnson: "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Mr. Wilkinson says, “I told him, sir, that fruit baskets is like life: until you’ve got the pineapple off’t the top you never know what’s underneath.” This line is reminiscent of the Forrest Gump quote: “My momma always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.” The fruit basket analogy with ''getting past the pineapple is used throughout the novel and is presaged in The Last Continent where the Senior Wrangler discloses that his aunt was a victim of one, a woman who literally could not get past the pineapple. The scene where Moist Von Lipwig, aka Albert Spangler, is waiting to be hanged has many parallels in the song and literature of the Roundworld. The idea of a someone appearing to give the condemned man or woman a last minute reprieve has been done in many forms; the old folk song, T''he Maid Freed from the Gallows,'' which is recreated in various forms including Gallows Pole (done by Leadbelly and made famous by Led Zeppelin) and the fairy tale in The Golden Ball to name two. In this case, Pratchett plays with the concept by having the black coach arrive and instead of having it bring a letter of pardon, the person inside says, "I bring a message from Lord Vetinari....He says to get on with it, it's long past dawn!" Pratchett also plays with the idea of the condemned man's last meal, saying that, "breakfast isn't until seven o'clock, ....But, tell you what, I'll do you a bacon sandwich." Moist's attempt at some famous final words "It's not a bad thing I do now" draws on Dicken's novel, A Tale of Two Cities ''and Sidney Carton's final speech , "it is a far, far better thing I do". Sidney nobly steps into the shoes of a man he resembles and dies in his place while Moist less nobly 'dies' under one of his aliases - neither dying under their own name. Moist's real final words are a parody of words Shakespeare used in his will a month before he died, “I commend my soul into the hands of God, my Creator" Moist/Albert Spangler on the other hand says, "I commend my soul to any god that can find it.” Vetinari tells Moist to look on him as one of those angels that arrives at a point in a person's life to offer him a chance to correct the mess he has made of it. This is the old concept of a shoulder angel in which a guardian angel tries to direct the person toward the path of righteousness while a devil tries to lead the person astray. Christopher Marlowe's play ''The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus and the opera Faust by Charles Gounod ''are the best examples of the devil winning but other Roundworld examples include the movie starring Jimmy Stewart ''It's a Wonderful Life ''where the angel wins. When questioned about whether Moist will show up at the post office or skip town, Vetinari says, "One mus always consider the psychology of the individual". This is a direct quote from PG Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster series of novels - a line Jeeves often uses when solving one of Bertie Wooster's problems. Moist escapes town on a "skinny old screw from the Bargain Box in Hobson's Livery Stable". The reader first met this business in ''The Truth ''when de Worde met Deep Bone there. Willie Hobson, who owns Hobson's multi-storey Livery Stable, clearly the equivalent of a multi-storey car park, is patterned after Thomas Hobson (1544-1630) a Cambridge stable manager and the origin of the saying "Hobson's choice" (ie the appearance of giving someone a choice, when actually there is only one option). People renting horses from him would be shown all available horses, but in the end they always had to take the one nearest the door, so that all his horses were exercised. Mr. Pump, the golem parole officer says to Moist, "You Can't Run And You Can't Hide" which is a play on the common saying "You can run but you can't hide" which originated in the 1940s, and is attributed to the American boxer Joe Louis (1914-81), who supposedly said this on the eve of his fight with the light heavyweight champion Billy Conn. When Moist tries to escape from the golem, Mr. Pump, he finds that his horse has been "clamped" a reference to the wheel clamping device used in the Roundworld to stop an impounded car from being moved - known as the "Denver Boot." "Mr. Pump does not sleep. Mr. Pump does not eat. And Mr. Pump, Postmaster General, does not stop." This is a paraphrase of a line from 1999 film ''The Mummy: "He will never eat, he will never sleep, and he will never stop." It also resonates with 1984 film The Terminator: "That Terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!" Moist says to Vetinari, "I know golems are not allowed to hurt people". Moist is applying Isaac Asimov's first law of robotics to the golem. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are: # A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. # A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. # A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Pratchett pokes fun at these laws when he has Vetinari order Mr. Pump to break one of Moist's fingers and Mr. Pump quotes an addendum to the law "Unless Ordered To Do So By Duly Constituted Authority", which is not part of Asimov's original three. This extra addendum continues a common Pratchett theme of subordinates unquestioningly carrying out the orders of a superior, an argument which was at the core of the Nuremburg Trials after WW II and is known as "the superior orders plea" or the "Nuremburg Defense". The sign on the wall of the Post Office says, "NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLO M OF NI T CAN STAY THESE MES ENGERS ABO T THEIR DUTY."" This inscription comes from the General Post Office in New York City which reads: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." The line was also referenced in Men at Arms. The list of things on the wall of the post office that one is not supposed to ask about includes Mrs. Cake, who was first introduced in Reaper Man ''and is a psychic medium who runs a boarding house for the undead in Ankh-Morpork. The list is a parody of the common lists businesses promote encouraging the patron to ask about everything from restaurant's the new kid's menu to the insurance company's policy options. Being the post office, with a reputation for not being proactive, the list is turned into a negative. The Dimwell Arrhythmic Rhyming Slang is an obvious parody of Cockney Rhyming slang. Dimwell is a district and street in Ankh-Morport. Pratchett points out that rhyming slang has an obvious problem for general use in that it is often difficult to trace the logic of the word back to the rhymes that created the first connection. Dimwell Rhyming slang is one step beyond this, like the progression in poetry with rhyming couplets that scans to arrythmic blank verse. Stanley says, had wings on his hat and his ankles,' "So he could fly the messages at the speed of ... messages." In Roman mythology, Mercury (Hermes to the Greeks) was the messenger to the gods in general and Jupiter (Zeus) in particular. He is depicted with a winged cap and wings on his ankles. As well as making a clever stand-alone joke, the concept of the modesty-saving fig-leaf also having wings neatly pokes fun at the reason ''why fig-leaves went on public statuary in the first place. These were a Victorian invention devised to spare unmarried ladies under thirty from the sight even of sculpted male genitalia, carved by their unthinking forebears in earlier centuries. statues including Michelangelo's David, were discretely covered in a standard fig-leaf, chosen ostensibly because the Bible identified it as the leaf used by Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness, when they saw they were naked, and they were ashamed. The fig leaf with wings covering the penis has another older origin as well. Frescoes discovered intact at the Roman sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum display penises and testicles with wings and in one mural, young women are trying to catch them as they buzz around in like a flock of birds. A popular lucky charm/religious amulet worn by Romans, frequently discovered in archaeological digs, was a pendant of an erect penis and testicles, with wings which was a fertility symbol as well as ensuring good health and a healthy sex life. It was worn around the neck in the same way other religions might wear a cross, or indeed a turtle. Conflating these two concepts - Victorian prudery and healthy bawdiness - in the form of a confused-looking fig leaf with wings on it, would suggest Ankh-Morpork is a place confused about what its attitude to sexuality should be... just like modern Britain, in fact! Pratchett has used this reference before in Small Gods ''with Om-as-Tortoise's desperate curse on Brother Nhumrod in ''Small Gods "Your sexual organs to sprout wings and fly away!" The two roommates' at the post office who are polar opposites, one with the messy side and the other super neat resonates with films such as'' The Odd Couple '' (TV and movie) and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Living Conditions (Pratchett was probably not consciously thinking of the latter, not being a fan). Stanley whose parents passed away of the Gnats and was raised by peas draws a ridiculous parallel to the many "true stories" of children being raised by animals as well as fictional accounts such as Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book boy Mowgli who was raised by the wolf pack, or Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan of the Apes, '' or Romulus and Remus the founders of Rome raised by wolves. Stanley exhibits some of the tendencies of autism in his encyclopedic knowledge of pins and obsessive nature toward them. He is the editor of ''"Total Pins" and hates the rival magazine "Pins Monthly", ''both popular names for magazines (except for the pins part). Mr. Tiddles, the cat, is an obvious reference to the ''Monty Python's sketch I''nteresting People'' with Graham Chapman where he throws Tiddles the cat across the room into a bucket of water. The real Roundworld Tiddles (1970 -1983) lived in the Paddington Station ladies room and weighed over 30 pounds. Tolliver Groat (a groat is a medieval coin) and his naturopathic remedies is a send up of the whole alternate medicine field where everything natural is deemed to be good for you. As Pratchett points out by using the natural compound containing arsenic, even poisons occur naturally but that doesn't mean they are necessarily good for the body. A similar point can be made about the homeopathic dead mole around his neck. The piles of undelivered letters in the Post Office, including one accepting a young man's offer of marriage from 40 years ago, references the many stories of postal workers around the world dumping, hiding and generally not delivering their mail, usually because they are unable to deliver it all in their daily shift so save it planning on delivering it on a slow day - which never comes. The whole question of the viability of the Post Office is raised with the expansion of clack tower network, which has been growing and developing over the course of the Discworld series and are like the Roundworld semaphore towers of the 1800s. They have obvious parallels in the Roundworld to the internet and email, facebook, twitter etc which have been the death knell for personal mail in the Roundworld as the clack towers have been in Discworld. Moist says, "Good Gods, the madness is catching.....what kind of man would put a known criminal in charge of a major branch of government?" This line reflects Pratchett's general contempt for bureaucracy and government in general and is certainly apropos given the politics of governments around the world today. When Moist visits the pin shop he is walking into a world very reminiscent of an old style pornography store (before they vanished with the internet) with its rows of magazines that anyone could buy, the behind the counter products not for children, the backroom stuff for special guests, etc. Similar comparable "dodgy" establishments would be shops selling rolling papers, pipes and medicinal marijuana in the store front and less medicinal products out the back, the old speakeasies for buying booze during prohibition and even pharmacies in the days when Playboy and Penthouse were sold with a plain brown cover to hide the real cover that was not appropriate for young eyes and which sold contraceptive devices and products from behind the counter instead of out in the open. Antimony Parker, the Greengrocer says, "Be with you in jus't one moment, s'ir, I'm ju'st—'"– Greengrocers throughout the English-speaking world (but in England in particular) are known for their persistent abuse of the apostrophe-ess combination on their handwritten signs which Mr. Parker does to extreme, carrying the language on his sign into his own speech. When Vetinari meets with the officials from Grand Trunk he says, "However, I note that since you acquired the Grand Trunk at a fraction of its value, breakdowns are increasing, the speed of messages has slowed down, and the cost to customers has risen." There are parallels between the Grand Trunk and America's now-broken AT&T telecommunications monopoly, but in all likelihood Pratchett was thinking of the UK's British Telecom, which is still a monopoly there and has very few friends among its consumers and is truly reflected in the quote above. British Telecom was once part of the British Post Office and was still known as "Post Office Telecommunications" until 1980, shortly before it was privatized by Margaret Thatcher's government at a fraction of its true value, just like the Grand Trunk. "The free golems work 24-8...." As anyone who has read Discworld from the beginning know, the number eight is magically important on the Disc and tends to occur wherever our world would use a seven. This reference is to working 24-7 in our world but in Discworld the week is 8 days long. "'This, my lord'," said Gilt, gesturing to the little side table..."'Is this not an original hnaflbaflsniflwhifltafl slab?'"–The Vikings were known to have played a game called 'hnefatafl' (king's board) also known as 'The Viking Game', 'The King's Table' or simply 'Tafl' which is likely the origin of the Discworld game's name. Hnefatafl is one of the rare breed of games with two unequal sides. It consists of a square chess type playing board (originally cloth) and peg men made out of carved stone or wood. The defending side comprises twelve soldiers and a king, who start the game in a cross formation in the center of the board. Their objective is for the king to escape by reaching any of the four corner squares. The attackers comprise 24 soldiers positioned in four groups of 6 around the perimeter of the board. All pieces move like the Rook in chess and pieces are taken by "sandwiching" i.e. moving your piece so that an opponent's piece is trapped horizontally or vertically between two of your own. The game plays an important role in ''Thud''. Stanley says, “See a pin pick it up and all day long you’ll have a pin.” which is a variation on the Roundworld rhyme “See a pin (or a penny) pick it up, and all day long you’ll have good luck.” Grandad's speech on "We keep that name moving in the Overhead", referring to the mysterious death of John Dearheart and the great unhappiness this has provoked among long-time Linesmen. The following text quotes almost verbatim from Glen Campbell's country and western hit Wichita Lineman, about the life and death of an electrical lineman in the heart of the USA. The novel is filled with references and parodies about computers and the internet, including GNU, crackers (specifically, phreakers), AT&T, Treasure Island (Gilt's cockatoo), The Great Gatsby (Gilt's parties), Lord of the Flies, The Postman (Kevin Costner film) and The Lone Gunmen ("The Smoking Gnu"). Adaptations Television Going Postal was adapted for television as a mini-series, directed by Jon Jones and first broadcast on Sky One and Sky 1 HD, in two parts on 30th and 31st of May 2010. Terry Pratchett made a cameo as a postman. Cast: * Moist von Lipwig - Richard Coyle (Coupling) * Reacher Gilt - David Suchet (Agatha Christie's Poirot) * Patrician Havelock Vetinari - Charles Dance (Game of Thrones, The Jewel in the Crown & The Golden Child) * Adora Belle Dearheart - Claire Foy (Little Dorrit) * Mr. Pump (body) Marnix Van Den Broeke - (Terry Pratchett's Hogfather) * Mr. Pump (voice) - Kerry Shale (RKO 281, Dennis the Menace) * Drumknott - Steve Pemberton (The League of Gentlemen, Psychoville) * Tolliver Groat - Andrew Sachs (Fawlty Towers) * Sacharissa Cripslock - Tamsin Greig (Black Books, Green Wing) * Angua - Ingrid Bolsø Berdal * Mr. Gryle - Adrian Schiller (Being Human, A Touch of Frost) * Stanley Howler - Ian Bonar (Hotel Babylon) * Crispin Horsefry - Madhav Sharma * Mustrum Ridcully - Timothy West (Edward the Seventh, Brass) * Mr. Pony - John Henshaw (Early Doors, Born and Bred) Theatre Adapted by Stephen Briggs into a stage play in 2005. Gallery Translations *''Пощоряване'' (Bulgarian) *''Zasl/raná pošta'' (Czech) *''Posterijen'' (Dutch) *''Timbré'' (French, word play with « timbre », French for stamp, for mad, crazy) *''Piekło pocztowe'' (Polish) *''Ab die Post ''(German) External links * Information from L-Space.org Category:Novels Category:Moist von Lipwig series Category:Books Category:Books (real-world)